Line 3 Review Fails to Address Tribal, Environmental Concerns

St. Paul, MN -- Today, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ruled that the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) on Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline will be considered adequate, in spite of its failure to address many environmental concerns and the pipeline’s impact on tribal communities and cultural resources.

The PUC has ordered that the Traditional Cultural Properties Survey -- which would identify culturally significant locations like burial grounds or traditional sites along the proposed pipeline route -- be completed before construction starts on Enbridge’s Line 3, but has failed to require that it be completed and considered  before a decision on the final permits is made. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights has raised concerns about the PUC’s unwillingness to include the Traditional Cultural Properties Survey in its review of the project.

The importance of this type of survey was underscored in the recent controversy over the Minnesota Highway 23 project in which state and federal agencies did not adequately work with Fond Du Lac, resulting in sacred sites being disturbed and the project being put on hold.

“Despite the PUC’s ruling today, the fact remains that this review fails to address serious concerns raised by Tribes and landowners about Line 3,” said Margaret Levin, State Director for the Sierra Club North Star Chapter. “The PUC’s responsibility is to Minnesotans, not Enbridge, and Minnesotans deserve a full accounting of the risk this project poses to lands, clean water and Tribal resources. To ignore these risks is deeply disrespectful to Tribal communities.”

"For over a year the PUC has summarily dismissed the legal and technical deficiencies in its environmental review, which have been raised in multiple legal briefs and hundreds of public comments,” notes Paul Blackburn, attorney for Honor the Earth. “The PUC has known for a very long time that a full on-the-ground tribal cultural properties survey needed to be done so that the harm that the Line 3 Project would do to these properties is fully understood. But, the PUC let the survey slip through bureaucratic cracks. Faced with a decision about whether to respect tribal rights or stick with its arbitrary schedule, the PUC chose to place a higher value on its schedule. The environmental impact statement is built on many flawed assumptions and omissions, including an assumption that Enbridge’s vision of steadily increasing demand for the world’s dirtiest and costliest crude oil is correct. In this future, catastrophic climate change would be the inevitable result. Fortunately, investors around the world and here at home are shifting their assets to renewable energy, and inventors are making electric vehicles affordable and practical and better than gasoline powered vehicles. Unfortunately, the environmental impact statement is based on a vision for the future that only a climate change denier could love.”  

“Despite a unanimous Appeals Court ruling in favor of Friends of the Headwaters and a robust EIS on oil pipelines, today’s decision from the PUC finalized a flawed Environmental Impact Statement,” said Richard Smith of Friends of the Headwaters. “This EIS for a huge crude oil pipeline doesn’t even tell us what would happen to the environment if a spill occurred at any particular point on the pipeline. Minnesotans don’t have to spend a lot of time reading judicial opinions to conclude that that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”